Yeah. I know…

“Pornism” isn’t even a word. 😉

But as I was rereading an article that I read last week about a pastor in Ohio that had a stripper pole on his pulpit to illustrate a point about sex, I thought about a little girl that I encountered in a library some years ago. She was *cute enough* and because she was staring, I said “Hello.” In response, she smiled and said, “Hi…’the N word’.”

Now I could tell she had *absolutely no idea* what she was talking about and so while she had me taken aback, I knew not to direct any offense her way. Oh, but she said it loud enough (again, in a library) that it sent her mother running towards us. Immediately, her mother said, “I’m sorry. I have no idea where she got that word from.”

Yeah. OK. If *you* say so.

That memory reminded me of a commerical that I saw about racism; that indeed, racist is not something that children are born being, it is a behavior that is taught. And so while I’ll be the first one to raise my hand in class and say “Big ups” for a pastor dealing with sex *head on* in church (after all, it’s one of God’s *absolute greatest gifts* and *should be addressed* among believers), I found myself honing in on one particular part of the article:

“Ready to start a new sermon series called ‘Battle of the Sexes,’ Pastor Mike Scruggs at the Light of Word Ministries in White Oak, Ohio, has put a stripper pole, video games and sports equipment on one side of the pulpit, representing what men desire. On the other side, he has set up a bed with candies, teddy bears, roses and a bottle of wine to depict what women want.”

*He put a stripper pole on one side to represent what men desire.

*He put roses and a bottle of wine on the other to depict what women want.

Immediately, my mind went back to that thing I learned about racism, and then I thought about some of my own past sexual experiences; how after 14 partners and my own bout with porn, I’ve come to the conclusion that you can definitely tell the difference between the guys who have sex based on the kind of porn they watch and the ones who don’t (Heads up, dudes: Most of us aren’t into having “porn sex”. It feels like you’re having sex *at us* rather than *with us*). And how the ones who didn’t, they weren’t trying to have five minute Cirque de Soleil moments to corny background music with barely a kiss on the face; how they were actually attentive and affectionate: before, during and after.

Now, it’s another message for another time that fornication is wrong, no matter what package it comes in, but I’m sharing all of this to ask two things:

1) Being that a stripper pole was inspired by *strip clubs*, which basically is a form of “tangible porn”, is it that men desire their woman on one or is it that they were taught to think that is what makes for a sexy night?

2) Is it healthy to bring such learned behavior into the marriage bed? Because being that sexual intecourse is a mind-body-spirit experience, what’s the difference between having a stripper or porn star in your bed and wanting your wife to act like one?

You see, ’cause here’s the thing: I think it’s *really unfortunate* that a lot of people think that good sex means that it has to be tainted by porn’s influence and I *simply loathe* the whole, “I want a women in the streets and ho in the bedroom” mentally. Why does a good woman have to act like a broken sex object to accomodate a man’s sexual needs?

Personally, it’s because I think a lot of men are the victims of pornism and both in and out of the Church, we have gotten so complacent about it, we’ve been treating men like they were *born that way*, when really, it’s a behavior that’s been taught.

What are your thoughts?